ABBA's 1976 album Arrival was their fourth
and arguably their best. Every song on Arrival seemed to have a
certain hit quality about it and it is perhaps not surprising that Arrival
sold over ten million copies the world over.

While most countries used the image of the ABBA members sitting inside
the helicopter on the Arrival album cover, luckily for the collector,
there were a few exceptions. Note the French, Russian and Bulgarian covers
used the picture of the group standing outside the helicopter. The French
release is particularly interesting as the album is a gatefold sleeve
with the more commonly used album art and song lyrics on the inside.
In Australia and New Zealand the album also sported a gatefold sleeve
and had Fernando included on the track listing. The Australian
and New Zealand Arrival album, however, used the group photo inside the
helicopter on the front cover.

Also of interest is the East German release with the title Dancing Queen
instead of Arrival and using the photo from the Dancing Queen single.
Strangely Bang-A-Boomerang replaces Money Money Money on the East German
album. Andre Mande from Germany explains that "in the DDR when track
lists were changed in this way, albums were considered to be compilations
and no longer original albums. As a compilation an album cost
the record company less to release!

It's interesting to note that in Holland 'ABBA/Arrival' was printer on
the lyrics side of the inner sleeve and not over the photo, in Denmark
Arrival was distributed by EMI and one of the Austrian releases has
the song lyrics printed over the photo on the back cover.

Arrival was re-released in Ireland without an inner sleeve and with a different
catalogue number in 1981 and in the EU in 2001
using a direct metal master.